Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel . I walked past its colonnaded 18th-century facade hundreds of times, but rarely felt compelled to step inside. True, the hotel’s gilded salons offered a perfect dose of old-world Frenchness and made a glamorous backdrop for fashion-week presentations and the occasional Paris Vogue party. But you have to be in the mood to hang out on Louis XV furniture under 20-foot ceilings, and the Crillon often felt a bit too stiff, too regal, even by Paris hotel standards. When my boss was in town from New York, or when I invited a museum curator for drinks, we had other go-to spots, such as The

One day this past July, back in Paris, I had a good excuse to cross the Crillon’s threshold: It had reopened that very morning, following a four-year renovation that cost a reported $300 million. And, well, voilà. If the much-scrutinized overhaul of The Ritz last year brought to mind a grande dame undergoing a discreet face-lift, the Crillon’s leaves you thinking that she’s having a romance with a man half her age. There’s no hint of formal froideur from the smiling young staffers, dressed in breezy contemporary uniforms by 26-year-old designer Hugo Matha. The once-sober lobby has been divided into several bright, individual spaces, including a homey nook where concierges sit alongside clients on velvet sofas. Through the courtyard, past the salon of hairstylist David Lucas, there’s even a men’s grooming area with vintage Aston Martin car seats and an outpost of the hipster French barber La Barbière de Paris.

It’s all part of a plan by the new operator, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, to make the Crillon a real hangout for Parisians. “Travelers who come to Paris want to feel like they’re in Paris, and that means interacting with locals,” says general manager Marc Raffray. The cocktail bar, in the space formerly occupied by the haute cuisine restaurant Les Ambassadeurs, has its entrance just next to the front door, so people can come and go without parading across the lobby. Drink prices are slightly less stratospheric than at

Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, with a glass of locally brewed Gallia beer going for €14 ($17). The design team (Aline d’Amman, Chahan Minassian, Tristan Auer, and a few other Paris insiders) made a point of preserving the hotel’s sacred spaces—the second-floor Salon des Aigles is as Versailles-worthy as ever—while mixing in opulent modern touches to make the whole place feel more accessible and alive. In the bar, the original gold chandeliers remain, but they’ve been draped with silver chains.

Room rates are still more suited to billionaires than boulangers: If you want to book the connecting Les Grands Appartements suites and salon designed by Karl Lagerfeld, that’ll be €32,000 ($38,200) a night, breakfast not included. A longtime connoisseur of 18th-century decor, Lagerfeld created his own chairs and sofas for the rooms, accenting them with some of his photographs, and a two-ton bathtub cut from a single piece of Carrera marble. In the Marie-Antoinette Suite, reconceived by an all-female team of designers and artisans, the most stunning feature may be the 400-square-foot terrace overlooking the Place de la Concorde—the very spot where the young queen was guillotined in 1793.

In recent months, with France under a dynamic 39-year-old president, Paris has felt a bit different—more open and forward-looking than usual. It could be just a coincidence that the revamped Crillon reflects a similar modern spirit. But it’s rarely a bad sign when a city, or a hotel, wants to belong in the current century.